Monthly Archives: December 2013

Recently, I was doing some research for another possible new book in the future. Many Indie Authors are figuring out their own way and producing quite remarkable results indeed.

One Author does their marketing in this manner;
Uses 3 pen names.
Publish across all retailers.
Writes in BBW werewolf romance and psuedo-incest.
Writes new stories each month and uploads them to the platforms.
Writes in series, probably making the first one perma-free.
Prices those books according to length, from .99 – 9.99, books are in 3,000 to 150,00 word count.
Uses paid advertising.

You notice a system in the above? Sure you can see it. Multiple Author Pen Names with many Titles listed under each one makes more sales. Of course, the paid ads put those books in front of readers. The Author uses the book series formula, making the first book free to hook the readers into buying the rest of the series.

Another Author found his way with this;
Writes what they love to write about.
An Active Facebook Page, website and a mailing list.
Uses newsletters to find new readers such as BookBub, BookBlast, etc.
Writes in Series because that is where the most sales originate.
Released a new novel every two months to keep that boost going.
Priced books 2.99-3.99 range.

Here, I laid out examples of two successful Authors basically using the same formula. No need in making this post any longer. By the way, did you learn anything?

A fascinating idea for an adventurous journey in the self-publishing business. One might respond with a question to this young man with such a genious plan.”Do you believe you’re ready to follow through with this goal? He might reply with a simple, “Sure I can do it just as well as anyone can.”

Let’s take a hard look at this process the young lad is eagerly itching to jump into, the kindle publishing fire! Afterall, it never hurts to research a project before you leap.

First things first, you do need money to make money. Very few people can make a success out of a business or other venture without having enough money to invest. You should think about maintaining that current standard of living you have before rushing out to quit your “job.”

Now that we have those tiny obstacles squared away, what should be the first steps taken to get a book self-published? Bottom line, write a great story that many people will find interesting enough to read! Search what sells the best on the Amazon Online Book Store. You want to write in a niche that gives you comfort and ease of writing. Never try to write about a subject that you have no interest in. Pour your heart and soul into that story!

Once the book is written and edited by a professional editor, have a few others read it to get their opinions on the new story. You want the best out their in publishing la la land. If they like it, approve it, and say publish it, find a quality cover designer to make you one awesome killer cover that will woo those readers out in the Amazon Book Jungle.

Wow, a cool book cover and a great story go hand in hand! Yes, it cost the bank account a nifty little bundle, but what a book that you have to behold. Next up, write an attraction pulling blurb that will move those interested readers to open the book by clicking to look inside.

Its ready to go! Time to upload that masterpiece and hook those sales! WAIT! Locate as many free sites you can advertise this masterpiece on as possible. Some of them have a waiting period or you must let them know in advance. A few of them will want some of your money in that hefty bank account so go ahead and pay up. Once you have your book scheduled young man, go ahead, upload that new book at 2.99.

Welcome to Indie Self-Publishing, you’re officially in the big time limelight. You think all you have to do now is sit back and wait on the thousands of purchased free downloads!

Oh no you don’t! Go build yourself a new website or start a bookblog site. Once you have it going with your book included, have a go at starting both a facebook page site about you and that book, plus a twitter account.

Now you think that you can breath a little, right? Wrong again! You need to get with it young man. Start creating a character outline about the people in your next book. Outline what the new book will be about, a plot maybe, who are the people in the book? Are they male, female, young or old? Do they have any handicaps? Weight problems? General things that everyday people in the real world go through. Are they rich? Poor? Married? You want an idea of what each chapter in that book is going to be about. It makes writing much easier than stringing it along on a whim out of your imagination.

No young man, you can’t rest now! Not between writing chapters. You have to continue marketing that first new book you published. It has come off the free promotion now and actually ranking decently on Amazon Sales.

Tweet it once in awhile.Once a day is good and have your Facebook account linked with twitter so it shows there also. That will save you a few minutes of time. Since it is making you some decent money, and a few 4 star reviews have shown up, go ahead and advertise it to a few more paid booksites. The more you can afford, the better for your Author name and the book.

You can take a day off to rest young man, but while you are getting lazy, take some time to visit a few of your allies. Those will be your new friends, your competion in a competitive business. Yes, they write books too!

The above is a great way for anyone to start an Indie Self Pub Career. Anyone can start one but it takes sincere effort, diligence, know-how, and above all that deep down thirst inside to succeed. Oh yeah, don’t forget to bring some money with you.

You can spend countless hours designing your own covers from scratch or you buy spend that money buying custom designed covers. However, do you take the time to really discover what your goal is when you place a cover on your book?

How many times have you searched Amazon to see thousands of books with covers that don’t relate to the stories inside them? Authors compete against each other to maximize sales, but sometimes they fail in producing the right cover to get their message across to readers. Great book covers should blend into the story that is inside the book. A good title is essential in selling a book. Titles with three or less words are easy to remember and make more sales than longer titles.

A book cover that tells the story inside the book from just the cover will sell more books. Your book cover should be perfect in color, graphics, fonts, title, sub-title, and brief description to maximize it’s selling power. You have heard it before, ” think outside the box.” Why not throw the box away?

Always take your time to get the perfect cover for those stories that you write for others to read. You should spend many hours researching into that perfect image or graphic design to be on the front of your book. Experiment with colors and various fonts. Adjust the size of the fonts to get the best look. Make sure you place your Title, Author name and a brief description in the correct positions on your cover so they don’t distract from the image on the cover.

Overall, make sure that the cover you place on your book is the cover you won’t have to go back to change in the future because it turns readers off. Fiction books are much harder to design covers for than non-fiction. Readers searching for a non-fiction book are after the information, whereas those searching for a fiction book generally want to see a beautifully designed cover before they will look inside.

You want those eyes on your book? Spend more time on those covers to maximize the selling power of what is in your book covers. That great story, perfect title and perfect cover are the three key elements in all book covers so make yours the best it an possibly be.

How do you use the characters in your book stories? Any story you write must have interesting characters that serve a unique purpose. Sometimes authors pick characters out of their minds which is pure fantasy. Other moments, those characters might be from real life people they use in the story.

Many factors are involved in those characters. How old they might be for an example. Male or female. Their weight, height or build might play an important part in the way the story is told. What will be the role they play, a lover, a detective, a cheating husband, or any other role ideas that might come to mind.

Another great idea is choosing the names of those characters very carefully. the last thing you want to do is have two characters with the same names and mix them up in some way during the writing of the story.

Suspense and the mysterious make great stories as well as high sales to readers. Also keeping the reader guessing as to who done it or in other words, who done the dirty deed keeps their interest growing up to the ending of the story.

Your characters should remain human. Unless they have super human strength or unknown mental powers, keep them real. another point to consider is what you write. Using repeated words over become a nuisance to the reader. always check your work as you move along writing the story. It saves you a little work when the editing process begins.

If you must use many characters in a story, be sure you have each and everyone fulfilling their roles completely until the end. Pick out a best-selling book and you will see what I mean.

No matter how great a book is once it is published, usually something can be made better in a revised edition in the future. Never forget those past stories you may have written. You never know what you might have missed that you can rework in a future edition.

Another trick that helps is to read what others write often. it keeps those creative juices flowing inside your mind. Sometimes watching a movie can trigger you to head over to the desk and write on that next story.

For more information on writing, visit my site here and browse some of my Books.